'When Heaven and Earth Changed Places' is the autobiography of a woman who survives by wits, guts and sheer endurance the horrors of war and occupation--and, later, the horrors of emmigration to a bizarre new world and marriage to a different kind of war victim. It provides a rare and articulate window into the mind and heart of someone who was made to play, by circumstance, both ally and enemy. It should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to understand the Viet Nam war (or, as the Vietnamese more correctly call it, the American War), but it's far from some dry and bitter medicine that must be consumed with a pinch of the nostrils. It's an exciting story, extremely readable--a tale that is frightening, harrowing and, ultimately, heartening. The movie was decent, but the book is much better.

Susan O'Neill, Viet Nam Veteran and author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

19 of 20 found the following review helpful:


Thoughtful perspective of a life changed by war  Sep 06, 2001 By Christopher Nieman
Le Ly Hayslip's first autobiography is fascinating, and also remarkable for offering a rare view of the "American War" from a woman who was once a young conscript with the Viet Cong.

I have many friendships with Vietnamese expatriates, and in contrast to Hayslip, they are unambiguous "southerners." Each family has compelling stories to tell of maltreatment, imprisonment, and persecution under the communist system, for real and supposed associations with the former South Vietnamese government. Hayslip's perspective is different from theirs but uniquely compelling in its own way, for she ultimately had enemies on both sides and few friends on either side, even within her own family.

She tells of sorrow, torture, failures, hardships and mistakes in such a way that I felt uncomfortably close to her at times. And while she has a genuine awareness of her own humanity and its many challenges, she leaves some difficult personal questions raised but unanswered. Nevertheless, I came away from the book with a much fuller perspective of Vietnamese culture and attitudes before, during, and after the war.

Although Hayslip is worth praising for her humanitarian efforts, she is but one of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese expatriates who continue to support the families they left behind. It's the strangest irony of the war's aftermath that communist Vietnam seeks the assistance of the very people it drove away.

The rarely reported legacy of the war is that the Vietnamese people -- including the Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese) and so-called "northerners" and "southerners" -- continue to struggle with differences that still surface more than 25 years after the fall of Saigon. Hayslip's story shows that regardless of ideology or culture or geography, the war and its aftermath affected most Vietnamese in cruel and unpredictable ways.

29 of 35 found the following review helpful:


A War That's Not Over  Apr 05, 2000 By Mijin Kang
"Le Ly Hayslip had always been in-between south and north, east and west, peace and war, Vietnam and America. It has been her life and fate to be in-between Heaven and Earth." When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is a story of a woman from a small village in Vietnam called Ky La. The author, Le Ly Hayslip, is just another victim of the Vietnam War. The brutality of the war created separation in her family, destruction of an individual, and distrust among formerly warm-hearted neighbors. She was born the youngest of six children in a close-knit Buddhist family. Throughout her childhood, the peace breaks into pieces due to the war. Le Ly, as a little girl, serves the Viet Cong fighters, and she is honored for courageously surviving tortures in prison when captured by the government. The book focuses on the individual¡¯s emotional and physical outcomes caused by the war. If one wants to know the reality of what the effects of the war are, this book is definitely recommended. As an Asian, I was attracted to the story of the life of this Vietnamese woman. As I read, I found there was something very extraordinary about her life that stirred my emotions. To the public, this story is well known through the movie, "Heaven and Earth." As the movie was enjoyed by numerous moviegoers, the book will be appreciated by people of all ages, especially those who are interested in the Vietnam War.

50 of 63 found the following review helpful:


A piece of biography interweaved with lots of fiction  Nov 15, 1999 By James Chaffee
I visited the village of Binh Ky (Ky La) in mid 1969 while escorting a road sweep with members of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. I was about to leave country, having served 18 months on an extended tour with the Navy Hospital at the Marble Mountains, NSA Station Hospital. I am very familiar with this area.

Though I don't doubt that Hayslip may be from Binh Ky (I have been back and seen her family tomb in the dirt poor hamlet), I do know that a good deal of what she tells in this book is pure fiction.

1. Da Nang City was off limits to U. S. personnel from mid-1966 until the U. S. pulled out. There were no clubs to go to, no strip joints. All clubs were on bases. No one walked on the streets or lived in apartments in Da Nang. Those who worked there were transported there from their bases. All her stories about working in strip clubs frequented by Americans in Da Nang or meeting GIs prowling the streets are lies.

2. There were no U. S. personnel working at the civilian hospital in downtown Da Nang, as she claimed her lover Red did. I know, as I went to that hospital numerous times carrying wounded or sick Vietnamese civilians in our ambulances, and I toured the hospital several times. It was mostly open bay buildings with two or three to a bed, the families moving in beside the patients to cook for them while farm animals wandered around the facilities. Red is a purely fictitious character. As I stated earlier, no U. S. military personnel lived in apartments in Da Nang. There were some compounds where Americans lived, but they were guarded by Chinese mercenaries or other non-Vietnamese troops and you wouldn't just walk up and knock on the door of one of them. In her later book, Child of War, Woman of Peace, this facility becomes a Navy hospital in Da Nang. I was at the only Naval hospital in the entire I Corps, and it was at the Marble Mountains, not in Da Nang. There were barracks there, not apartments, and civilians were not allowed to visit them. And there was no Vietnamese guard at the "front door" or anywhere else on this compound. It was guarded by American Marines. This whole episode is pure fiction.

3. Hayslip claims to have traveled from Da Nang to the Marble Mountains twice, on foot, at night. This is not likely, given that the only way to get there involves crossing a river, the Song Han. The two bridges across the Han were guarded by Americans and no civilians crossed at night. There was a curfew in Da Nang. Boat travel was subject to artillery fire, monitored from the top of what called the Crow's nest, one of the Marble Mountains facing Binh Ky.

4. She claims her sister had an apartment at the Marble Mountains where Americans visited. I have film footage and still shots of this area and there are no apartments there, let alone one with a common indoor bathroom as she claims. In fact, the houses were all one story structures, almost exclusively shacks. This is another pernicious lie in which she paints an unflattering picture of Americans.

It is not clear why she has added so much fiction to this account, but my guess is that otherwise it would be very dull. All of the nonsense she has added is very disparaging to Americans, which could also be a reason for their addition.

These lies make me wonder how much of the rest of her tale is true. Her credibility is low for me. I corresponded with her briefly on the internet, but after I asked her to tell me how she got from Da Nang to the Marble Mountains by foot she stopped responding.

Nonetheless, it is a great read, but must be taken with a very healthy grain of salt.

8 of 9 found the following review helpful:


Amazing story of a little girl and grown woman.  Feb 16, 2003 By Dana "Love Science Fiction and some Fantasy books."
I am 16 years old, and I do not like to read. But I started reading this book for a research project of mine. I am blown away by the 2 story's in this book. (The author as a little girl, and as a grown woman revisiting her home). I recommend this to anyone interested in the life of a vietnamese child during the war, or to anyone who loves asian culture.

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